THE RICHMOND ROSIES®

Between 1941 and 1945, 747 Victory and Liberty ships were built in Richmond, CA during WWII, and women made up a large portion of that the workforce. In fact, nearly 60% of the Kaiser Shipyards workforce, which included the Oregon facility, were women. Young women who had never worked outside the home before, now had to take the place of men who went overseas to fight the war.

These women were called Rosies...short for Rosie the Riveter, and for the first time in history, women became journeyman welders, pipe welders, draftsman, and electricians. They built ships. Big ones. And lots of them!

This film interviews five still very active Rosies and the film lets them tell theirstories about what it was like to travel across the country, on their own as young women, and arrive at the entrance to the largest shipyard in the world.

It was a world of steel and fire and danger; a place that had never allowed women to work in before the war.

By entering the gates of Kaiser Shipyards during WW II and becoming journeyman welders, pipe welders, draftswomen, and electricians; these women not only helped to win WWII, but secured their own financial independence as well; changing the course of history for women throughout the United States and the world.

These are some of the women who gave birth to the new American woman. A woman of ambition, guts, skill, and fierce independence.